You have /5 articles left.
Sign up for a free account or log in.
The University of Wyoming announced Sunday that the institution is home to the newly launched Bitcoin Research Institute, which will focus on creating academic research on the digital currency.
According to the institute’s executive director, Bradley Rettler, it is likely the first such center in the nation.
Bitcoin is often mentioned in tandem with cryptocurrency, as it is one of the best-known versions of the digital currency. It’s powered by a technology called blockchain, which records transactions in a decentralized system, meaning no singular entity controls or can manipulate that data. Other cryptocurrencies are not decentralized, making transparency more difficult.
“We think Bitcoin is more like the internet and cryptocurrencies are like J.P. Morgan: they do one thing in a more closed kind of way and Bitcoin is open and democratic in the way the internet was,” Rettler, an associate professor of philosophy at UW, said. “We’re pretty early on in the process; there hasn’t been much attention paid to it.”
This is not the university’s first foray into innovative technology. In 2020, it launched the Center for Blockchain and Digital Innovation. While that center is housed in UW’s school of business and focused on the technology’s applications in the business world, Rettler wanted to create a stand-alone unit for Bitcoin.
“The difference is [the institute is] academic and not project-based,” Rattler said, adding they could have had an academic arm in the Center for Blockchain, but “I don’t want people to think I’m pro-cryptocurrency, because for most of them I’m not.”
He added he does not want the public to think he is “shilling Bitcoin.”
“We’re not telling people to buy it; we're exploring the dimensions of the existence of Bitcoin,” he said.
The Bitcoin institute will be housed in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, as Rettler plans to foster an interdisciplinary approach that focuses on the intersections of Bitcoin and various fields of study, including philosophy, law, energy and environmental science and computer science.
While Rettler said there are no hard measurables for the institute—beyond producing academic papers and books—it will be up for renewal in five years, as is UW protocol.
